Take That GOD! A letter written through frustrations.

Ha! – the obvious thing to share today would be that my week has sucked.

Truly, the dark cloud of depression or hopelessness or frustration or despair or junkycrapness has settled into my mind for the last six days or so. Just a general malaise and bad attitude that I wanted to shake free from, but didn’t even care enough to try.

Not long ago I got a message from an old friend. They talked about these blogs, and how something I had written, touched them and they related with it. They went on to say, that they knew that I had changed in my life, I was sober now, and that I had found God. They said, that before reading my blogs, they assumed that I was now free and happy and rejoicing all day long (now that I had found God)… Okay, maybe I exaggerated that a bit.

Anyway, it was interesting to hear that outside point of view, in an honest and matter-of-fact way. Sure, finding God creates happiness. I found God, now I am happy….

Exceeeeeept…. NO.

Don’t work that way.

At least for me.

right now.

Dang that would be great though! The magic key we are all wanting to find. The thing that will bring us happiness! The thing outside of us, like God, or money, or stuff, or ‘security’, or love, or sex, or a party, or meditation, or kids, or a divorce, or food, or a job, or not-a-job, or whatever… All those ideas of things that once we have them, we could then be happy…

Well honestly folks, I have a lot of that stuff now, that I didn’t use to have. And still, truly, I experience deep unhappiness.

I will list some things that I now have, that I didn’t used to have:

A relationship with God, the love of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, engaging through my daily life, and during Bible Study and Church worship too….

I have a wonderful wife. I am married. I am blessed beyond measure by her.

I have no consumer debt. I don’t have car payments, or credit card payments or even a house payment.

I have jobs aplenty now. Designing artwork, being creative three days a week. Restauranting the rest of the days. Creativity, problem solving, coaching and serving, all throughout the days and nights, and tonight, a very late night.

Money comes in, more than we neeeeed. By a bunch. Sure, more would be even better, but there is no short-term money worries in my house. (Also, not because we make a lot. Because of the ‘no debt’ thing, and we live frugally 🙂 )

Oh yeah, and two years of Sobriety…

So anyway, these are pretty important things in life. God, Marriage, Work, Money. These things are now in much better order in my life than they used to be. I can say that I wasn’t really happy before all this. And at times now, too many times, I still don’t feel much happiness now.

From Your point of view, this will look different. From your point of view, you may see or want to say things about what I just said, to possibly encourage a different thought, or to even argue my statement here. You may want to tell me, how it is that you remain happy and upbeat through all kinds of trials in life, and I could learn a lot from you.

Funny thing is this. Life is lived from the inside out. Whatever I experience, I am noticing from my insides, which cannot be seen or even truly explained to the outside. The same goes in the opposite. When I notice someone else’s outsides, their words, their actions even, I make a judgement or an awareness about their insides, through my filter of my world, and it is probably not exactly right to them.

Point of today’s note is this: I have unhappiness at times. Too many times for my liking. Even with tons of training, and brain smarts enough to notice and tools to change myself, I find myself in moments, where I don’t even care to try any of that stuff. I just want to sit in my pee pants and be mad about it the whole time. I will be a grump to be around, I may lash out at you, I may spread my inner junk all around to anyone close to me.

So there.

I don’t know if this is the death throws of my inner child, finally letting go, or growing pains into the next level of transcendence, so that I can one day be more mature and reserved and balanced and steady and calm. Or maybe, it just is, as it always has been, and always will be.

I have tons of information and resources about happiness around here. I have a complete home-gym filled with Nordic-Tracs, Bowflexes, Thighmasters and Shake-weights. Books and audios and email addresses of people to help with Happiness…

This week though it wasn’t about utilizing any of those devices or methods or tools. It was just about banging around life, in a bad mood, until something started to change. I guess at least, I kept on banging around, kept moving forward, even angrily.

This morning the air is cleaner. The inside hurricane in starting to subside. The half an hour I spent talking with my wife last night helped a lot. I needed that.

So. Just in case someone else out there was wondering. Life isn’t always Peachy in my world. I don’t want to put up any false fronts here. Take that God! You amazing creator of this divine universe! I can still be a damned old grump, while you love me and give me all the forgiveness of the sacrifice of your Son, Jesus Christ. I still have a choice to enjoy that or not, and sometimes I choose not. I hope you let me hang around here for a long time, I still have a lot of work, and growing left to do.

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols


4 thoughts on “Take That GOD! A letter written through frustrations.

  1. Happiness, like sadness, comes and goes. Some weeks are way better than others. Thirty minutes with someone you love can work wonders. Thanks for sharing your soul with us.

  2. Thanks for the honesty Aaron. We will have these kinds of feeling and inner strugglings till the day we die. Then eternity. But we were built for it and have a way to endure while reaping Joy along the way – through Christ, His Spirit, the Councelor and a Father that loves us more than we know or imagine. Don’t forget we have an Enemy too my friend. If you’re not struggling some of the time, then you must not be a threat to him. but you are a warrior my friend. You have the Gift of Imperfection (like us all) – thankfully for you, you have the courage to admit it. Now you can receive the Joy that accompanies it. Stay Healthy my Friend.

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